


careless & crass (she's my next of kin)

by coolest



Series: ashes to ashes, dust to dust verse [4]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - America, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Established Relationship, F/M, Family Issues, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Heavy Angst, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Minor Character Death, New York City, Physical Abuse, Religion, Romanticism of heavy issues, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9277607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolest/pseuds/coolest
Summary: There are so many favors Louis asked of God to do for him but it’s been seven years since he threw his pride out the window out of desperation and begged for something that never happened anyway.Or, the one where Charlotte and Louis are Titan Gods of the universe and courage means something different for them both.





	1. In another life

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys!! this is louis and lottie only, harry will come in the next chapter   
> title cred goes to: Sister by The Japanese House (they're absolutely amazing) 
> 
> WARNING: lots of talk of abuse and bruises and very dark shit. lou and harry's relationship is not like goals at all like idk and if you don't like reading about christianity when it's being trashed (almost) then pls don't read or skip it when you get it. There's a hint to an eating disorder (Lottie) and if you're triggered by mentions of abusive relationships then sorry. 
> 
> Other than that though, i hope you guys enjoy this. I love writing this, angst gets me fucking going man   
> if there are any other triggers you stumble upon, pls tell me asap

“I used to pray to God everyday for you.” 

It’s six in the morning. The kitchen is lit in striking hues of yellow that have only just begun to pour in through all the open windows. 

Across from him, Charlotte sits with her elbows on top of the chipped, and cobalt blue, table separating them. (So much about her has changed.) 

Underneath the early morning sunlight she looks like someone who’s never been hurt and Louis can’t help but wonder how long her hands have been shaking, or if they’ve ever stopped. 

(Last night she had come barreling through their door at 2 am in the morning with gallons of grief spilling out of every open pore on her body like hot lava. 

She had been hysterical and filled to the brim with the type of all-consuming sadness that had manifested into white-hot anger, and had made her lose her mind.)

She stays quiet. The thin straps of the silk baby pink nightdress fall off of her bony shoulders and she lets them stay the way they’ve fallen. 

Minutes tick by and the silence between them continues to stretch and stretch and stretch. A century passes before she says anything to him

And when she does, 

It’s this; “You should’ve prayed harder.”

Her eyes are still the same as they’ve always been- big and sharp and the colour of ice. (So much about her has changed.) 

Louis believes in multi-universes. He believes that there are an infinite amount of universes in which him and Charlotte exist and in each of these universes everything is different from the other. 

All the versions of the people they could’ve been exist in these universes and Louis knows that in one of them Charlotte hasn’t gotten her heart broken. 

However, in this one, she has. In this universe, Charlotte knows grief like the back of her hand. She wears it all over her body in the form of bruises and scars.

(There’s fresh bruise curving along the side of her face and it reminds Louis of spilt ink- of the flowers that blossom, and grow, up walls during the spring and of tragedy.)

 

 

 

What is it about the people in his family that manifests the love they feel into open wounds? 

 

 

 

Centuries ago, when Charlotte had been known as Atlas, she had carried the world on her shoulders and even now, centuries later, she still does. In this lifetime, she carries the world on her shoulders in the form of a blanket that she’s spread thin to wrap around her shoulders and keep herself warm. 

(This is all she’s ever known.)  
(This is also the problem.) 

 

 

 

Back when Louis used to ask God for things, he’d ask that God protect his sisters. He’d ask that they grow up to be nothing like him. He’d talk to God about how his mother’s scared for him, he’d say; “She never says it, but I don’t think she ever wished for a child like me. Ares and Helios, two separate Gods in one God.”

His prayer was always the same prayer and it always started the same, like this: “Dear God, I’ve got two little sisters that look at me like I’ve someone worth aspiring to be and I’m not. I don’t want them to be like me.”

He’d beg for God to put fear into them, to make them run when they should and never towards what they were meant to be running away from. 

He’d say; “Dear God, I’m begging you to make my sisters cowards. Make them just the right amounts of everything. Make them selfish, less curious than me, more willing to listen to instructions and actually do them.” 

He’d say; “Dear God, I want their hearts to be made of cement because my heart is like an open door and I don’t want them to know what it’s like to feel this much in a world that doesn’t want you to feel at all.” 

It always ended like this; “Dear God, you and I both know that I’m not a regular customer and I don’t think I’ll ever be one. But please, do me this one favour and put mercy upon my sisters. 

Amen.” 

 

 

 

(Louis doesn’t believe in God but he believes in heaven and heaven is still a dream of his, even after he’s done all that he’s done. 

He’s a boy carved from nothing but hope and hell has never been for people like him- the beautiful ones.)

 

 

 

Courage is different in everyone. In Louis, courage is staying. In Charlotte, courage was leaving. 

 

 

 

Before she had left, Charlotte and Louis would spend the whole night whispering to each other on the phone. Sometimes, they’d say nothing at all, anything just to put Charlotte at rest.

During the times when they’d speak and speak, Charlotte would always ask questions about his and Harry’s relationship. She’d ask why Louis’ stayed for so long when they’re relationship is everything but healthy- when it sort of resembles her own relationship with Nathan. 

“Harry and I, we’re different.” He’d whisper in the dark with his eyes trained on the side profile of the man sleeping beside him- the same man he wants to spend the rest of his life fighting with and loving. “He doesn’t hurt me the same way Nathan hurts you. We hurt each other, is the difference, and we love each other like crazy. In this story, we’re both the villains.” 

 

 

(The year is 2010 and they’re outside, in the yard, with their backs flat on the grass and the sun beating down on their sun kissed skin. 

Louis’ eighteen and Charlotte’s just turned fourteen. She’s wild and beautiful in her recklessness, and brave in a way that’s different from Louis. 

She turns her head to the right and tilts her sunglasses down to look at Louis over them- eyes blue and bright and sparkling. “Mum says she’s scared for me.” 

Louis lights a cigarette and ignores the way Charlotte looks at it. He’s got enough burdens to deal with. He exhales and takes a sip of the bottle of lemonade they’re sharing between them. 

“Mum never named you Atlas.” 

Charlotte says nothing. Just puts her sunglasses back on and tilts her head towards the sun, smiling like nothing could ever hurt her. “I know,” she replies. “It just … it still feels like it sometimes. Like … I know m’name is Charlotte but I don’t feel free”

The year is 2010 and the promise of heaven isn’t tainted yet, things are still okay. Louis loves his sister infinitely, in big amounts, and he cares for her so deeply that he feels it knocking on his bones. He wants to apologise to her, for all the little ways in which he’s turned her into him and made all of this- this growing up thing- so much harder.

“The problem is,” he starts to say and the apology dies in his throat, “You’re too much like me.” 

Charlotte laughs and the sound comes straight from the pit of her belly. Louis prays to God everyday for her and there are no miracles happening here. Her cheeks are tinted pink from the heat surrounding them. 

She takes his hand and squeezes it, like she’s trying to reassure Louis that everything will be okay but he doesn’t think so.

“I know,” she hums, “that’s the problem.”)


	2. Let me show you a love that heals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only time Louis speaks to God is when they're fucking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M ALIVE LOL NO ONE MISSED ME BUT STILL I AM HERE READY WITH A NEW CHAPTER BC WRITER'S BLOCK HAD ME SHOOK
> 
> but whatever, anyway, i hope you guys enjoy reading this! It took me longer than i expected even though it's super short 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: If you don't like God being spoken about in a horrible way, please don't get mad in the comments as if I didn't warn you because I did and it you get hella butthurt about things like this click tf out of this asseblief 
> 
> (Other than that, idk what other trigger warnings there are other than mentions of depression, death of a parent, etc. Please exit if these type of things bother you.)

This is the problem:

Everyone whom Harry has ever loved in his life has left him. His father. His mother. Gemma. And it’s hard trying not to think that, like everyone else, Louis will leave him as well. 

 

 

 

“D’you know how much I love you?” Louis whispers this into the juncture of his neck, lips wet with spit. Behind him, the city of New York sighs. “I love you so much.” 

Harry’s heart clenches in his chest. Sometimes, he can hardly believe how much he feels for Louis. He doesn’t wish this for anyone- to love someone so much even the mere thought of losing them breaks your heart- but he doesn’t regret this either and he hopes, despite all the pain he’s put Louis through, he doesn’t as well. 

“How much is so much?” Harry asks, lips curled up into a smirk. Louis laughs softly and brings his head up to look at him, eyes glinting under the moonlight. 

“Too much, I think.” His cheeks are tinted pink from the wine and the electricity in the air. “It’s all consuming,” he sings, leaning back against the balcony railing and moving his arms so that they were hanging off the edge. “Is that what you want to hear?” 

Harry kisses him, tired of trying not to, and brings his hands up to cup both of Louis’ cheeks. There’s been a time in history, in another one of the lives they’ve lived together, loving each other, where someone’s written something tragically beautoful about them and even in that lifetime Harry loved Louis excatly like he does now-

Too much. 

All consuming. 

 

 

Long ago, Harry was given birth to by Heaven and Earth.  
In that lifetime, he killed his farther and seperated Heaven from Earth. He’s been guilty ever since. 

Long ago, after he’d eaten all seven of his children, spat them out, created time and ruled the Titans, he left home to a far away land and created the Golden Age. 

He was at peace then, he can still remember it- how infinite he’d felt. 

And even now, in this life time, where he is Harry Edward Styles and not Kronus- King of the Titans- he’s still trying to find that same peace within himself but everything he touches nowadays turns to ash. 

In this lifetime, he hasn’t spat any of his children out. 

In this lifetime, he’s still so fucking angry. 

 

 

 

Harry believes in a God because he believes in Heaven, and he believes in Heaven because Heaven is his mom. 

 

 

 

They fuck on the floor of their bedroom, leaving a trail of clothes behind them and a half smoked spliff still burning out in the kitchen. 

Harry presses Louis against the floor with one hand on his back and another threaded in his hair, fucking into him so hard his vision doubles. 

The only time he’s ever heard Louis beg God for anything is when he’s begging for Harry to fuck him faster. 

When Harry turns him around, so that he’s lying spread out on the floor facing Harry, Louis reaches up and clasps onto the crucifix around Harry’s neck. 

“You’re mine.” Harry grunts just as Louis yanks hard on the necklace. “Mine.” 

A sharp sound resonates through the room when Harry’s hand connects harshly with Louis’ milky thighs. At the impact, Louis arches his back off the bed and cries out to the stars.

Harry grips him by his face and kisses him hard, all teeth and teeth and teeth. 

“God,” Louis gasps out just before he cums, skin sheer with sweat, “I’m yours, I’m all fucking yours.” 

 

 

“You haven’t been angry in a long time,” Louis muses softly over a shared cigarette and some Jimi Hendrix playing softly. 

“I’m trying.” Is all Harry tells him, too wrapped up in the feeling of Louis kissing each of his knuckles-still bruised up from centuries ago. “It’s tiring, y’know, being so angry all the time.” 

Louis smiles softly. His eyelashes flutter against his cheeks when he looks down for a brief second before gazing back up at Harry. “I can only imagine my love,” he says, “how it must feel to want to set the world on fire every day.” 

Harry smiles back at him, softly, lethargy creeping its way back into his bones. “Bad things have happened to me in every life time I’ve ever lived, I think.” 

“Except for me.” 

“Yeah, except for you.” 

 

 

The thing about loving someone like Louis is that, like his anger, it’s tiring. 

However, unlike his anger, Louis’ love for him and his love for Louis is good-is beautiful. 

Their love is the most precious thing Harry’s ever known- it’s intimate and kind, but it bites back, sometimes- hard enough to make him bleed, sometimes- and their love is loud, aggressive in the way it wants to be loved back, and Harry doesn’t know what he’d do without this love. 

If he’d be here without this love. 

If he’d even know love without this love. 

Because this love, his love, is good. It’s the type of love that heals, albeit slowly, it heals and Harry is proof of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for making it this far and (hopefully) liking it
> 
> please comment and leave kudos, it really does make my day when i can see that people are actually enjoying what I'm writing. So sorry it's so short, i'll try to make the next updates longer (but no longer that 2000 bc nope) 
> 
> Love always, Rat

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this one! 
> 
> if you have anything to say or comment, pls tell me below! and if you liked this pls kudos bc yeah 
> 
> L x


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